


A Little Bit of Kindness

by trajektoria



Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, and later adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22562059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trajektoria/pseuds/trajektoria
Summary: Antoine d’Orsay knows his younger brother better than anyone. And, unlike their parents, he shows that he cares. His absence is sorely missed.
Relationships: Constantin d'Orsay & De Sardet, Constantin d'Orsay/De Sardet
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	A Little Bit of Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [captainjennhart](http://captainjennhart.tumblr.com/) who is the best beta ever and a treasured friend. You rock! <3

One might say that sixteen years is not enough time to gather an extensive life experience. Antoine d’Orsay would be the first to agree with that sentiment. There were plenty of things he still didn’t know despite all the time he spent studying and reading all the books he could find in the royal library. And yet some truths were simply evident even for an adolescent. Like, for example, hearing his little brother and their even younger cousin giggling together infallibly meant that some mischief was afoot. 

This time the giggling was particularly loud and joyful. Intrigued, Antoine lifted his eyes from the treatise he was perusing and turned his head towards the noise. 

He always liked to lounge on the windowsill of the second floor. It was high enough to offer a good vantage point on the entrance to the building—and he liked to keep tabs on who was coming and going—but at the same time was enough removed from the daily lives of the household to remain relatively quiet. The second floor housed bedrooms of the royal family and their closest guests that came to visit, so during the day it was virtually empty aside from an occasional patrol of the guards or the servants running their errands. A child’s laugh here, especially during summer at midday when the weather was sunny, definitely qualified as a peculiar occurrence. 

Constantin and Armand strutted down the corridor. Constantin held something in front of himself in his clasped hands like the most precious possession. The happiness on his face gave him wings as he nearly flew onwards. Armand, a year younger than his cousin and small even for a five-year-old child, had to skip and jog to keep up with his companion. But his toothy grin showed that he didn’t mind the inconvenience at all. 

Antoine’s eyes reflexively moved towards Armand’s cheek and the dark mark covering his skin. The blemish looked like a brown stain on a white canvas, a constant source of gossip among the Serene’s elite. Antoine didn’t care about that. His only concern was the boy’s health. But since Armand showed no signs of pain or illness… Perhaps it was just a birthmark and nothing more.

Antoine pushed these thoughts away. Irrelevant. Unlike the cause of the two urchins’ mirth. They hadn’t spotted him yet, which could explain why they were so unrestrained in their excitement. The adults always seemed to find a reason or two to scold the boys. The prince especially was particularly harsh on Constantin. It pained Antoine, but he couldn’t do anything about it. 

“Hey, guys. What do you have there?” he asked, putting his papers away. 

Constantin and Armand nearly got their pants scared off them. Constantin panicked but as soon as his eyes rested on Antoine’s–the same warm shade of gold–he relaxed visibly.

Antoine smiled to put them at ease and slid off the windowsill. It wasn’t his place to chasten anyone. Despite all his responsibilities that consumed a lot of time, he wished to be friends with Constantin and so far his little brother trusted him. Asked to make a family portrait, Constantin drew himself in the middle with Antoine and Armand both holding his hands. It was an honor Antoine wanted to be worthy of. 

“I’m just curious, that’s all. You look as if something good has happened to you.”

Constantin and Armand exchanged glances. These two could always say so much without uttering a single word. They must have arrived at some kind of agreement because Constantin nodded and turned to Antoine, staring at him gravely.

“I’ll tell you, but you need to swear that you won’t snitch!” he said with a slight lisp, the result of missing a milk tooth at the front. 

Uh-oh. Antoine wouldn’t like it, would he? But then what choice did he have?

“I swear. I’ll be silent as the grave.” He lifted his hand to his mouth, made a gesture of turning a key in a lock and threw it away. Armand giggled and Constantin seemed satisfied as well. The boys approached him.

“Okay. Look!” Constantin opened his hands a little bit, lifting them up. Antoine still had to bend down to see what was concealed there. In the dark cavity between his brother’s fingers… he saw a pair of beady eyes. 

“Ribbit,” came from there, somewhat mournfully. 

“Hm.” After surviving dozens of social gatherings with the nobility, Antoine had trained his face not to show surprise. But in his mind, he blinked owlishly. “It’s a frog, isn’t it?”

“He’s called Julien. I named him!” Constantin puffed out his chest. “He’ll be my pet now. I’ll keep him in a basket under the bed. No one will know.”

“I see…” Antoine recalled in vivid detail a scene from about a week ago. A huge fight erupted when their father forbade Constantin from adopting a puppy, leaving him heartbroken. It seemed that he had found his consolation in an amphibian. As much as Antoine was happy for his little brother, he could spot a disaster in the making. No soothsayer was needed to predict what would happen if someone discovered a frog in Constantin’s room. Or, what was even more likely, if Constantin found the frog dead by accidental neglect. It would end in pain either way. Cutting this short as soon as possible before his brother got too attached seemed the kindest solution. 

Antoine understood that he had to be delicate. Constantin was so sensitive, perhaps too sensitive for his own good. The last thing he wanted was to hurt him. Armand too, by extension. 

“I think...” Antoine started, not being patronizing in the least. Constantin, like many children, was allergic to being looked down on. “...it’s very nice of you that you have taken Julien on an adventure. But now you need to bring him home. His family will miss him if he doesn’t come back soon.”

“Miss him?” Constantin stared at him, his eyes widening. Antoine had sown a seed of doubt. Now it was time to let it grow and reap the results.

“Of course!” Antoine crouched to be on the same level as his brother and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure his cousins will be very sad if he’s not there. I mean, if someone suddenly took Armand you’d be sad, right, Connie?”

It was a low blow and he knew it. But also very effective. 

Spooked, Constantin shot a glance at Armand at his side. The boys seemed equally upset at the thought of losing each other. Armand went so far as to hold onto Constantin’s elbow, showing that he had no intention of going anywhere. 

“Hm… Okay,” Constantin conceded, the corners of his lips tilting downwards. “I didn’t mean to take him away from his cousins.”

“It’s okay. Nothing bad has happened.” A bright smile was all that was needed for Constantin to feel reassured. “We’ll go now and set him free. You can always visit him if you want.”

Constantin nodded eagerly and so did Armand. 

Abandoning his studies for a while, Antoine led the boys into the garden in a silent procession, more on a serious than a sad note. Constantin understood the importance of his quest and Armand marched at his side, always faithful. They cut across the lawn and ended in a slightly wilder corner of the royal garden, an effect of a brief fad after the discovery of Teer Fradee. Everyone wanted a piece of untamed nature in their estate. In this case, it took the shape of a carefully curated pond with some gnarly trees growing around it and a fallen trunk repurposed into a crude bench. Not exactly a place where young children should be playing on their own, even if the water was shallow. But who could really keep up with these two?

They stopped near the edge of the pond, watching the greenish surface of the still water.

“All right. You can let him go now, Connie.” Antoine kept the insistence out of his voice, giving his brother all the time that he needed. Forcing him into this would only cause anxiety. They weren’t in a hurry. 

Constantin met his gaze. Antoine smiled, encouraging. The boy cast a brief glance at his cousin and only then nodded, bracing himself. Constantin took a step forward and squatted, extending his arms far towards the water. Antoine’s pulse quickened as he feared that his brother would lose his balance and plunge into the pond. He waited, tense, but didn’t try to restrict him. Undisturbed, Constantin opened his hands. The frog didn’t waste the opportunity. The moment it saw an opening, it leapt to freedom, disappearing somewhere among the bushes. 

“Bye-bye, Julien. Say hello to your cousins from me.”

“Bye-bye.” Armand joined his friend’s farewells and gave the frog a little wave. Antoine had to bite his cheek. Kids were so adorable sometimes. He’d take their company over the aristocrats any day. 

“Yes, bye-bye. We’ll come back tomorrow and see how he’s doing, yes?” Antoine’s proposal was met with two nods, both slightly wistful. Especially Constantin made a long face. Antoine knew how to cheer him up. “Come on. Let’s get your hands washed and then we can sneak into the kitchen. I heard the cook say that she was baking cookies today.”

Constantin’s eyes lit up. Antoine laughed, ruffling his hair. It really didn’t take much to make a child happy. Empathy and a little bit of kindness sufficed. 

* * *

“Here you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Constantin didn’t react to hearing Armand’s voice behind him. He kept staring with unseeing eyes at the overgrown pond on its way to turning into a bog. Years of neglect hadn’t been too kind to it. 

Constantin felt Armand sit right at his side on the log, their shoulders brushing against each other. A comforting sensation. He reached out and took his cousin’s warm hand, lacing their fingers together. For a long while they just stayed like that in silence, listening to the wind and distant birds as they praised the last days of summer. 

“Are you all right?” Armand asked eventually, his thumb brushing across Constantin’s knuckles. 

Constantin looked at their joined hands before raising his gaze to meet Armand’s worried blue eyes. “No. I’m not.”

Armand wrapped his arm around him and pulled him into a hug, meeting no resistance. Constantin hid his face in his dearest cousin’s neck. Some things didn’t need to be spelled out. They both knew what day it was. The tenth anniversary of Antoine’s death, his young life severed cruelly by a bandit’s sword. Constantin was twenty now, the same age as when Antoine died. Years went by but some things never became easier.

“I miss him too,” Armand said, running his fingers through Constantin’s hair, trying to soothe him. It did feel nice. 

“Do you remember,” Constantin asked, pulling back a little to look at his cousin’s face, “that time when I wanted to adopt a frog?”

Armand smiled at the memory, so ridiculous in hindsight. “Yes, of course. Antoine told you to get rid of it.”

“Yes. But every other person would have yelled at me for bringing a filthy animal inside. Not him. He was always kind and he knew what would make me listen. He told me that the frog’s cousins would be sad if I didn’t bring it back.” Constantin chuckled, but his voice was laced with sorrow. “I think he was the only person who ever cared about me. Aside from you, Armand.”

Armand didn’t say anything, perhaps he didn’t know what could be said. Instead, he kissed Constantin’s forehead, his temple, his cheek, the corner of his lips. Constantin turned, joining their mouths in a proper kiss. Here, away from the palace, their secret was safe. 

“Do you think…” Constantin trailed off, averting his gaze.

“What?” Armand placed his finger and thumb on Constantin’s chin, gently making him look at him. “What’s on your mind?”

“Do you think that Antoine would have approved? Of us, I mean.”

“Of course he would,” Armand replied without even a second of hesitation. “He wanted nothing but to see you happy. As I do.”

Constantin’s heart leapt in his chest, flooded by affection. 

“Thank you, Armand. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Thankfully, you won’t ever have to find out.”

Constantin smiled, knowing that to be true. 


End file.
